grew up in an orphanage.”
That’s it: she had the accent of the French Canadian fir tree sellers who set up on street corners in the weeks before Christmas. For some reason his grandfather couldn’t stand the piney smell of the trees and used to cross the street to avoid them.
“The orphanage didn’t school you? What did you do all day?”
Her eyes seemed to be focused not on Eyal’s face, but a few inches above. “Kept care of the younger or sicker orphans. Cleaned. For the last fifteen years, I did laundry. I was told I could do laundry here.”
“You were born July 30th, 1962, so that makes you, let me see, almost thirty-two, correct? That’s quite a few years older than most volunteers. We could benefit from your experience. So why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to since the orphanage and I can try to make use of your skills. Does that sound good?”
“I only left the orphanage seven months ago.”
Adam widened his eyes while Eyal, visibly flummoxed by this information, ran a hand over his balding pate. How could a thirty-year-old still be in an orphanage? Was she also lying on her application? Why would anyone make up such an absurd lie? And she didn’t strike him as a liar. She had to have the wrong word. She meant some other kind of home.
Eyal set her application to the side as if it were no use. “Claudette, if you don’t mind me asking, what brings you to the kibbutz?”
Claudette described how she ended up on the kibbutz in a hushed voice, free from emotion, except perhaps discomfort. For the last seven months she had lived with her half sister Louise while continuing to work in the orphanage’s laundry. When Louise got married last week, her brother-in-law, who had once volunteered on a kibbutz, insisted she should do it. He promised she could do laundry here in exchange for room and board. Just like in the orphanage. Adam imagined the starry-eyed newlyweds who didn’t want this weirdo hanging around their honeymoon nest. They must have been giddy with relief when they realized they could pawn her off on the kibbutz for a while. Claudette finished: “And I supposed it couldn’t hurt to be where Jesus had His ministry.”
Eyal said he was very sorry, but they didn’t need anyone full-time in the laundry, that they would have to think of something else for her to do, and picked up Adam’s application. Adam straightened, clasped his hands.
“Honestly, I can’t read a word of this. I can’t even make out your name. Alan?”
“Sorry. My penmanship needs work. My name’s Adam.”
“Adam. It looks like you went to college for . . . what was it?”
“History. I majored in New York City history at Baruch College, which is one of the best schools in the City University. That high school I went to, Stuyvesant, it’s the best public high school in the city, maybe the country. Three Nobel Prize winners went there.”
These weren’t entirely lies. He had gone to Stuy, but they wouldn’t readmit him after he got back from rehab. As for Baruch, he was about to declare himself a history major when he was suspended that last time. He did love those history classes, and actually got an A- in “NYC: The People Who Shaped the City.” The only reason he hadn’t yet declared his major—how stupid it seemed now—was because he had worried that it was kind of pathetic to be a historian, that people who wanted to be great became great, and people who couldn’t become great became historians and studied great people.
“Not much I can do with history. What about jobs?”
He’d been fired from many shitty jobs—painting apartments, moving furniture, scooping ice cream—usually within a month.
“Well, I’ve had a lot of internships and other jobs, but—” What had his grandfather done on the kibbutz? He thought hard. “Cotton! What about picking cotton? My grandfather was on this kibbutz for a couple of years after the war, and that’s something he did.”
“Your grandfather was on Sadot Hadar?” Eyal raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Sadly the cotton fields are long gone. Even with the machines we couldn’t compete with India, where people pick for seventy cents a day. Seventy cents a day—wrap your head around that. There’s a plastics factory now where the cotton used to be, which means we now have to compete with China.”
Eyal massaged his forehead. Behind him a moth fluttered along the wall, past an oversized calendar scrawled with notes and scratched-out notes. Not a single day blank. Again, not the kind of calendar Adam would have expected on a kibbutz.
“I have an idea.” Eyal waved his pen at Claudette. “You worked with sick people, yes? We have an old woman on the kibbutz who’s very sick, but she won’t stop working. The problem is—and it breaks my heart to say this—wherever she goes, she’s more a nuisance than help. I try to send her somewhere different every day, spread the burden. Your job will be to accompany her, to help her get around. And to do some of the work she isn’t.”
Adam buried his hand in his pocket, clutched the brooch. Could this be the old woman he was looking for?
Claudette shook her head. “I would be better in the laundry.”
“But we don’t need anyone in the laundry.” Eyal picked up the phone. “Trust me, this is better. You’ll experience the whole kibbutz working with Ziva—picking mandarins, working in the dining hall. But whatever we do, we can’t let on that it’s you looking after her.” He raised his finger to suggest everything would be clear in a moment.
Adam released the brooch. He wasn’t looking for a Ziva.
“Hello, Ima,” Eyal said into the receiver. “We have a young Canadian woman for you to take charge of. She will follow you to your assignments, and you will make sure she understands the tasks and gets them done. Beseder?”
A squawk burst out of the handset, and Eyal jerked it away from his ear. He switched to Hebrew, but Adam understood by the jut of the secretary’s jaw that he was frustrated. He banged down the phone and lifted his hands in a what-can-you-do.
“I should warn you, Claudette, Ziva can be very . . . what’s a nice word for it? Forthright? Even Israelis find her rude. Don’t take anything she says personally. Believe me, I should know. She’s my mother.” He turned to Adam. “And you we can put in the plastics factory or the dishwashing room. It’s your choice.”
Neither sounded very Fields of Splendor, but Adam was relieved he could stay. “Dishwashing, thanks.”
Eyal pulled Monopoly money out of a drawer, two wads of colored copy paper stamped with numbers. “You can use these at the general store, the kolbo, to buy toiletries or other things you might need. In addition, we’ll give you a small stipend, a hundred and twenty shekels a month. You can pick up your work clothes and boots at the laundry.” Eyal stood, and Adam and Claudette followed suit. “Enjoy your time here at Sadot Hadar.”
Claudette departed without saying goodbye, while Adam hung back. He steadied himself on the back of his chair. “Hey, Eyal, one more thing. Can you tell me where I can find Dagmar?”
“Who?” Eyal carried his JNF mug to the kitchenette and scooped in a heap of Nescafé.
“I’m looking for an older woman named Dagmar. She lives on the kibbutz.”
“Not this kibbutz.” Eyal poured steaming
